


come across the desert

by irnan



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-09 07:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha, experiments in friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come across the desert

**Author's Note:**

> pop culture references include the Breakfast Club, Wizard of Oz and Sting: furthermore, Tony's Latin joke is one my Dad used to tell whenever I was suffering over my declination in school. Oh, and Castle. The Castle reference is for leighleighla.

(bruce)

Bruce wanders into the gym one morning while Natasha is warming up and says, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Doc," says Natasha easily. "Of course, you already did, so that brings you up to two."

He frowns at her. "You're cheerful."

"I'm in a Tony mood," says Natasha, which is a lie. She has allowed herself too much vulnerability around Banner as it is; she used it against Loki, strategic, deliberate, but with Banner it is far too genuine. Banner accepts her explanation, however, laughing quietly.

"Yeah, I get those too."

She leans against a pillar, raising her eyebrows at him. "You wanted to ask something?"

Bruce shifts his weight from foot to foot. "If you'd train with me."

Natasha blinks.

"You know one of the ways I tried controlling - the Other Guy - was martial arts."

"Yes."

"Well, and now it seems... it seems that if I'm going to stick around I'll probably have a second use for them."

Hot swoop of anxiety in Natasha's stomach that doesn't show in face or voice or movements.

"Are you sticking around?"

Banner shrugs. "Well, I woke up the other week and found out Tony had given me a job without my knowing about it, and the pay is pretty good."

She smiles. "Why me? You know the Hulk terrifies me." She can't tell if she meant to say that or not but it's made him flinch, and _that_ she can use.

" _Because_ he terrifies you," says Bruce. "Because you have the perfect control, sure. But he terrifies you, and you came to bring me in anyway, just like you tried to get through to me on the helicarrier, and then shrugged it off that he tried to kill you. I respect your abilities, which, by the way, are far more terrifying than the Hulk ever will be, but most of all I trust your judgement."

Natasha considers this. It is sound reasoning on his part, she has to admit. And as for hers: if he is staying, if, somehow, they have decided to make themselves into a team on something close to a permanent basis, she cannot be afraid of him in any way. It would threaten team cohesion and impede her ability to be a useful asset.

It is a fault line in her very self. Natasha does not like having fault lines. She papers them over with spit and blood - preferably other people's - and walks along them till they fade; so many things melt if you face them long enough.

"All right," she says. "Start warming up, we'll see how rusty you are."

Bruce looks delighted.

 

*********

 

(thor)

 

The one great downside of Avengers Tower is the number of days you have to suffer through when you can't get a minute to yourself. You're unaccustomed to this constant press of other people against you, around you, though if you were completely honest with yourself you would admit that you do not find it entirely unpleasant. But old habits are notoriously difficult to break: you have been alone for a very long time. Not even Clint changed that.

This is why you're so fond of the roof. You've got a beer and a book; the ground is admittedly less-than-comfortable but you're used to worse and it is a small price to pay to have yourself to yourself for a while.

(There are other places you could go: all you would have to do is actually leave the Tower. But as mentioned: not _entirely_ unpleasant.)

You're not truly reading - sitting and watching the clouds pass across the sky - when a shadow falls over you.

"Natasha," Thor greets you, smiling. "May I join you?"

Oh, why not. "Certainly."

He drops Mjölnir and sits beside you, careless of the red cape on the dusty floor. "I have been to see Jane," he says. "She has returned to Norway, did you know? When she returned to fetch her personal things her employers there requested that she stay another month."

"I think Tony said something about it," you say. "He likes to complain that Jane, Bruce and Betty are the only people in the Tower who speak his language."

"I am convinced," says Thor, "that the only person in this Tower who speaks Tony's language, as you put it, is the Lady Pepper."

You laugh out loud, because it's true. Thor smiles. You're still holding your book, resting it against one knee; he reaches over and taps the spine. "I was not aware that you and Clint shared this fondness for high places."

"We don't. I come up here sometimes to be alone."

He pauses. His hand falls to the ground between you, inhumanly strong fingers rubbing at a pebble the way a nervous child would. "I... see."

You wait.

"Loki was once the same way."

It is an insignificant shock to hear his name: two monsters in the half-dark with bloodstained hands and your only saving grace is that you try where he does not. But you see the expression on Thor's face and understand what he is thinking.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Which is not to say that I could not have prevented it."

Your turn to pause. "No, it isn't."

He actually laughs. "Thank you. You're the first to admit that."

"Oh!" You laugh as well. "People's mistakes belong to them as much as their successes. Anything else is disrespectful."

He looks up, pensively, at the blue sky above them. "I have come to believe you are correct in that regard. Though I doubt it is a popular opinion."

"I don't think so, either." You lean back against the wall, looking up as well. You lied when you said you didn't share Clint's fondness for high places, though for another reason entirely: he uses them, you need them. There is a freedom in being this high above the world. You’ve had precious little freedom in your life.

"You know, I'm a little jealous of you."

Thor looks at you, surprised.

"You can fly."

He smiles, an old man's knowledge in a young man's face. Standing, he holds out a hand to you.

You bite your lip. He smiles wider. You take his hand, let him pull you up and put an arm around your waist, lifting Mjölnir with the other hand.

"You cannot see the wind, can you," he says. "I have often wondered."

"No. You can?"

"Sometimes. This is a sea-wind now, they're always blue. The best kind."

"Bringing storms?"

He laughs. "Of course. Look down!"

You look: you're six feet above the rooftop. It's _amazing_.

"It's amazing!"

"We've not gone anywhere yet," Thor says. "Have you a preference?"

You give this the careful consideration it deserves. "Clint says there's a place in Boston that does pizza they should serve in Heaven."

"Then shall we bring him some?"

"Let's!"

 

*********

 

(steve)

 

Steve catches Natasha drooling over his motorbike once and promptly offers it to her for a spin. She makes him come.

The bike purrs under her thighs, rumbles in her ears, vibrations seeming to run through her. Motorbikes are a serious joy to Natasha. Nothing between her and the wind, all the power of this carefully crafted machine at her command: freedom again, but the added utter delight of control of it, knowledge that her skill holds the bike steady, her balance keeps them moving. They curve through Manhattan and over the Brooklyn Bridge, weaving through streets Steve knows like the back of his hand - still, or again? - Natasha's arms around his waist, her chin on his shoulder, until they come to Coney Island, to sit by the water with hot dogs and ice cream.

"So basically," says Steve, "you like things that go fast and vroom."

Natasha laughs. "Of course. Don't we all?"

"I... kinda."

"Oh, come on. I saw you grinning all the way here. We're all adrenaline junkies. You know, I think we almost have to be; that base line where we enjoy risk-taking... it helps us cope with what we do."

Steve licks ketchup off his fingers and shrugs thoughtfully. "Maybe. I try not to, though."

"Try not to enjoy it? You _are_ a killjoy."

He laughs. "Specifically, I try not to enjoy a fight. Not, you know, sparring or the bike or flying or any of that."

"OK..." She leaves it open, waits for an explanation. Steve doesn't disappoint.

"You know, in the war we'd run operations out of all sorts of places, work with units from all over Europe: resistance fighters, the US army, the British, twice the Soviets. All across the continent. And they were good men, men I liked and respected, but every now and then in all these units you'd meet someone who'd enjoy it... just that little bit too much. And you'd walk away from a battle thinking, _I should've put a bullet in his brainpan as well as the Nazi's_."

Ahhhh. Natasha... well, no. She doesn't _understand_ it. The Red Rooms beat enjoyment out of you, even enjoyment of a fight, they take exhilaration and stamp it into the ground, they hand you a scalpel and make you cut your own pleasure out of your body, for they did not want agents who _felt_ : not hatred, not love, not anger, not joy, not compassion, not sadism. This, at the heart of it, is why Natasha throws herself into a fight with all the gleeful exhilaration of a teenager playing Xbox instead of a killer, a professional assassin, slowly becoming a soldier.

But she's heard, from Clint, about the kind of thing Steve describes.

"Wars do that to some people."

"My point is that they don't _have_ to," says Steve. "I _don't_ believe it's somehow automatic or inevitable. I just... I don't. I know that makes me a jerk by today's standards. There's been studies, it happens to all kinds of people. But I believe... I _have_ to believe... that they let it in. That they chose it, somewhere, some part of them."

"Otherwise it's nothing but coincidence that you're not Schmidt," says Natasha.

Steve nods. Natasha does too, slowly. That much she thinks she does understand. She has a very specific skill set, her body shaped to match them by a country which no longer exists and a cause that never truly did. Imagine what she’d be now had Clint not said, _No – no! I have a proposal for you_ ; imagine a Black Widow who chose not to say _will you grant me a gift before we reach your base? I’ve been a test subject for long enough_.

She shivers in the sunlight.

"Come on," says Steve suddenly, "let's not talk about work. Have you ever been on the Cyclone?"

Whiplash mood-change that sets Natasha laughing. "What! No."

"Then let's do it. Bucky dragged me on it once, I threw up the second we got back on the ground."

"I think I kind of like your Bucky. Steve, come on, it's for kids..."

"Nataaaaaasha, I thought you were an _adrenaline junkie_. I thought this was a source of _pride_ for you. I thought -"

"Oh my God, I need to start rationing your access to Tony, I swear."

"Once! Just once. Then we'll go home before the storm hits and watch that weird sappy Breakfast Club movie that you love."

"That is a _classic_ , how dare you!"

They ride the Cyclone. No one throws up.

 

*********

 

(tony)

 

You like to watch people; it's an effective defensive strategy as well as being entertaining. Observe, catalogue, extrapolate, anticipate. But the first time you met Tony you didn't so much watch as look at him. Embarrassingly he distracted you as much as he did Pepper or Rhodey or Happy or even Fury: he presented you with a façade, and like a fool you fell for it because it contained just enough truth to keep you from looking (wanting to look) any deeper.

Volatile, self-obsessed, doesn't play well with others: none of these things are untrue. But they might be less true than you originally thought.

Or he might have changed in the meantime. That's another option. You suppose you could make allowances for a near-death experience.

You'd be lying if you pretended you didn't make allowances for choosing what Steve calls the sacrifice play. You'll put up with a lot from a man who has that kind of courage. You might even apologise for ever doubting he had it, but in order to do that you'd have to be a whole hell of a lot drunker than you are right now.

And right now you are pretty fucking drunk. A writer-friend of Tony's owns a bar - a really gorgeous old-world sort of bar that goes by the picturesque name of The Old Haunt, and Tony asked him for permission to throw a private party in it, which was kind of awesome and atmospheric and made Steve smile a lot, but that is not where you are now.

Right now you're singing karaoke in a run-down hole somewhere in the wilds of Brooklyn and the only word you have to describe this place is a German one, and that word is _Schuppen_.

OK, so it's Clint doing the actual singing. You and Tony are balanced on chairs at the back of the room, aiming your camera phones.

"Going on youtube in three... two... one," says Tony cheerfully. You're sure he's joking.

Almost sure.

Onstage Clint launches into the next chorus - _every breath you take, every move you make_ \- and does the Hip Thing.

"Where," asks Tony over the shrieks of glee, "did he learn to do the Hip Thing?"

"I've never asked," you admit. "But if you give Clint a stage and a microphone and a Sting song, sooner or later, he does the Hip Thing."

"I think it's _adorable_ ," Tony announces.

“I think it’s supposed to be sexy,” you say doubtfully. Well, it kind of is, though to admit that aloud would be tantamount to suicide.

Tony gives you a sideways look. “Straight,” he reminds you. “Well, _usually_ straight. _Mostly_. As a rule. Also taken! Which is a far more reliable criterion.”

You actually hiccup. This is not going to end well. “Is it really criteri _on_ in the singular?”

“Yeah,” says Tony. “It’s, like, Ancient Greek or something. Aramaic.”

“Latin?” you offer, catching his elbow and hanging on. It seems a fairly stable sort of thing to hang on to.

“Latin is a language, as dead as dead can be,” Tony declaims. “First it killed the Romans, now it’s killing me.”

The embarrassment of laughing so hard you almost fall off the table is considerably mitigated by helping Tony arrange for Clint to be greeted with a blast of Sting when he wanders into your next briefing two days later (still hungover).

They duet at each other too. You’re annoyed to find you think it’s adorable.

Well, sort of annoyed.

 

*********

 

(clint)

 

His plane's late; it's a hazard of commercial flights. JFK airport is all but deserted, the taxis have gone home, the place is eerily silent. Natasha's so bored she's reduced to wandering up and down the halls, twirling like a child, moving in dance steps just to keep herself awake. The doors slide back at twenty-to-two a.m., disgorging muttering, malcontent, pale-faced passengers and Clint, who saunters out wearing sunglasses, duffle slung over his shoulder.

"Anastasia," he greets her.

She fits, easily, under his free arm: they rarely walk like this, never on base. Pats his chest. He's tired, the weight of him loose and uncaring, the lines of his mouth conversely tight. "Locksley."

They stagger out of the airport to call a cab. It's a warm night. He smells like airplane blankets and bad breath; Natasha knows she smells like leather and rose-scented body lotion. The driver cocks his head at them, takes them for a couple, expects an address in some comfortable neighbourhood - or maybe not, going by the state of Clint's duffle - says, "Where to, folks?"

"Avengers Tower," says Natasha.

Clint slides sideways to curl on the back seat of the cab and put his head in her lap, heavy and warm. Under the jacket, the loose thin shirt, there are bandages, bruises; she didn't want him to go alone - he didn't want to go alone - but Fury laughed them off and here they are. "There's no place like home," he says, muffled.

The driver stares.

"Go to sleep, Dorothy," says Natasha, carding a hand through his hair. "You'll be back in Kansas soon."

"But I thought you fuckin' hated Kansas," says Clint. "I know I do."

She doesn't need to see his face to know he's smiling.

 


End file.
